{"id":91561,"date":"2026-10-31T21:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T13:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/part-100-puts-fcc-satellite-licensing-on-an-assembly-line\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T21:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T13:25:19","slug":"part-100-puts-fcc-satellite-licensing-on-an-assembly-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/part-100-puts-fcc-satellite-licensing-on-an-assembly-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 100 Puts FCC Satellite Licensing on an Assembly Line"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Kathryne
Kathryne Dickerson of Greenberg Traurig presents \u201cPart 100: A New Era for FCC Space Licensing\u201d at Silicon Valley Space Week on Oct. 27. (Photo: SatNews)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The FCC rebuilt satellite licensing to move faster. At Silicon Valley Space Week in Mountain View, Calif., on Tuesday, a satellite lawyer walked through how the new Part 100 process works, and an earlier panel laid out the pressures any licensing system still faces: predictable timelines and a new Congress.<\/p>\n

Part 100, which the FCC adopted July 22 to replace its Part 25 rules, \u201creally represents a sea change in the way the FCC regulates space stations and Earth stations,\u201d Kathryne Dickerson, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig, said in a Satellite Innovation market brief.<\/p>\n

The new assembly line<\/h2>\n

Dickerson described Part 100 as a \u201clicensing assembly line.\u201d Operators file the main FCC Form 312 first, and she said the FCC can approve it before the rest of the application is ready. Schedules F and O replace the old Schedule S, and a new Schedule B covers earth stations.<\/p>\n

Once the full application is filed, the FCC has 30 days to confirm it is complete and put it on public notice. Commenters then get 15 days, down from 30. After the pleading cycle closes, the commission has 60 days to grant the application, deny it or tell the applicant why it needs more time.<\/p>\n

An application that seeks a rule waiver or spectrum shared with federal users can be pulled off the line, but Dickerson said the FCC may split off only the problem piece. If the commission is still coordinating federal spectrum use with NTIA, for example, a conditional grant lets the rest of the application go forward.<\/p>\n

Operators also choose whether to join a processing round. Participants get spectrum priority, but they post a $10 million bond that shrinks as satellites go up, and they must deploy half the constellation in six years and all of it in nine. Operators who stay out post no bond and follow a looser, ITU-linked schedule. Geostationary systems no longer post bonds at all.<\/p>\n

Dickerson said the first processing round, covering Ka-, Ku-, Q- and V-band spectrum, is still expected to open Jan. 1, though the rules aren\u2019t in effect yet. She expects the FCC \u201cany day now\u201d to issue a public notice making the first parts of Part 100 effective. If that slips, she said, the Space Bureau will likely still open a round, just not necessarily on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart 100 is a default to yes, but it is not a default to no regulation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Time is the scarce resource<\/h2>\n

The earlier \u201cRegulators as Capacity Allocators\u201d panel, moderated by Brian Weimer, partner and space and satellite practice leader at Sheppard, took a broader view of licensing. Katherine Gizinski, a board member and former CEO of River Advisers, which focuses on international spectrum regulation, said speed only helps if it\u2019s predictable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe very scarce resource that regulators allocate even more so than spectrum, which is certainly finite, is time,\u201d she said. Two comparable companies, one licensed in six months and the other in 24, end up with \u201cwildly different financing requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not just saying fast is always better. I don\u2019t think it is,\u201d Gizinski said. \u201cIf I know that it could be done in three months, but it might be 18, that doesn\u2019t help me.\u201d A consistent timeline, she said, is what lets a board bound the risk and finance a venture.<\/p>\n

Then comes the election<\/h2>\n

On the same panel, Kevin Kelly, a partner at Actum, looked ahead to spectrum policy in the next Congress. He said he has spent almost 40 years in Washington, including time as a Senate Appropriations clerk. He expects engineers to solve the technical problems and the fights to center on who gets the spectrum.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho are the winners? Who will be the losers?\u201d Kelly said. With the Nov. 3 midterm elections approaching, he expects the next Congress to change the approach: \u201cThere\u2019ll be more oversight, and there\u2019s going to be, I think, some major battles.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Part 100, the next date to watch is the FCC notice setting the rules\u2019 effective date. For spectrum policy more broadly, it is the seating of the new Congress in January.<\/p>\n

Greenberg Traurig is a sponsor of Silicon Valley Space Week, which SatNews produces.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews Kathryne Dickerson of Greenberg Traurig presents \u201cPart 100: A New Era for FCC Space Licensing\u201d at Silicon Valley Space Week on Oct. 27. (Photo: SatNews) The FCC rebuilt satellite licensing to move faster. At Silicon Valley Space Week in Mountain View, Calif., on Tuesday, a satellite lawyer walked through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}